


I Triumph Still, if Thou Abide With Me

by wavewright62



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon, Remembrance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:13:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24622996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wavewright62/pseuds/wavewright62
Summary: The second chapter of the story begun in 'Abide With Me' (https://archiveofourown.org/works/24207010), spun out into its own story.  Lieutenant Sigrun Eide and her squad come upon a most unusual troll.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12





	I Triumph Still, if Thou Abide With Me

**Author's Note:**

> We will remember them.
> 
> I continue the fanon that the captain known as 'No Arms' is named Dagny.

“We need to get back to the boat.” Asbjørn Eide pulled his crew around him in the derelict street. Blue shadows lengthened from the buildings and trees in the summer twilight. They spoke in low voices, in case the ruined town wasn’t as deserted as it appeared.

“General, the stadium isn’t too bad,” Sigrun pointed behind her, “Most of the battlements they erected are in good shape, and the cats didn’t find anything lurking in there when we checked it out.” She was in training for taking on a captaincy. Even though the general was her father, she stuck to the protocols and referred to him by his rank while they were in the field.

The lieutenant beside her nodded agreement. “It would save us going back through the town centre on our way back to the boat if we camped there.”

General Eide squinted at the surrounding buildings and shook his head. “It’s been quiet so far, but I don’t want to make camp in this town. We’re still too close to Bergen here.” He looked around. “We still don’t have Tor and Oskar back. Sølvi, can you signal them?”

At his nod, the soldier pursed her lips and whistled in a fair imitation of a warbler’s song, the agreed signal. The troop listened intently, but no reply came. Asbjørn frowned, motioning Sølvi to give the signal whistle again. This time the sound came back, echoing faintly.

“That doesn’t sound quite right,” he murmured, “too low. I don’t like it.” A rumble and clatter like an approaching hailstorm could be heard. Some of the soldiers shifted uneasily, scanning the clear sky for storm clouds. Sølvi whistled again, but any birdsong was overpowered by the rumbling.

Asbjørn pointed at his lieutenants. “Sigrun, Dagny, go check it out. It sounded like it came from there.” He pointed at buildings alongside the stadium.

The women jogged over, keeping to the lit portion of the road. They had almost reached the building when one of their missing cohort burst from it, clutching a box to his chest as he sprinted. Sigrun called out, “Tor! Where’s Oskar?”

Tor looked behind him. Dismayed, he dropped the box and turned back to the building, with Sigrun and Dagny close on his heels. “I thought he was right behind me! There’s a-" The rest was drowned out by a fierce clattering and a scream.

Dagny reached the door first, practically ripping it off its hinges in her haste to get it open. As she did so, she was hit squarely on the forehead and knocked out by a thrown object. Tor caught her as Sigrun charged past into the room, knife first. The snare drum that had hit Dagny clattered unheeded to the ground, rolling into the weeds surrounding the building, wires stretched along one side rattling slightly as it came to a stop.

Noise assaulted Sigrun as she rushed in, an incredible clattering and booming of what sounded like the inside of a thunder cloud. Oskar was on the floor in front of Sigrun, attempting to crawl toward the door despite his legs being encumbered by a metal frame and a tangle of wooden tiles tied in knots. A terrible blast like a ship’s foghorn split the air around them. Sigrun fell to her knees beside Oskar, crying out as she clapped her hands over her ears. Her ears throbbed as she attempted to pull Oskar toward the door.

A second blast burst from the darkness. Wincing against the sound, Sigrun could make out something shiny moving toward her. She scrambled to get between Oskar and the target, knife pointing outward. She couldn’t see where the head was; all she could make out in the gloom was flashes of a metallic shine. Vaguely she could hear voices behind her telling her to stay down, before a shot rang out. She heard a ping as the bullet was deflected, whizzing off to Sigrun’s right.  
  
She cursed and covered her head. Oskar had freed himself from the tangle and was scrambling out the door. Sigrun rushed to follow, crying out as another blast assaulted her. Once outside, she joined the others behind the rifle line. Dagny had been pulled from the doorway and was having her head wound swabbed by the medic. Sigrun knelt alongside her friend, knife at the ready.

Asbjørn ordered them to fall back as he lined up another shot. “How many heads?,” he barked at Sigrun.

“Couldn’t see. ‘S wearing metal, the bullet deflected.”

The general grunted. The troll was almost to the doorway, stopped by the light of the summer twilight. He could appreciate now what Sigrun meant. The troll was virtually entirely encased in a carapace formed from shined smooth brass tubing, skittering forward on limbs protruding from a large flared opening. He could see the dent his bullet had made.

“Our ammo’s too soft. Get back. Is Dagny ready to move?” Asbjørn called back over his shoulder.

“I’ve got her,” the medic was on her feet, supporting a protesting Dagny while Sigrun took her other side. To Sigrun the medic said, “get her back to the boat, real slow. We’ll follow, got that?” Sigrun nodded but eyed the building warily.

Dagny hissed as Sigrun carefully turned her toward the boat, blood running out from behind the cloth she was pressing to her head. “Hey, Dags, guess you got _drummed_ out of town!” Sigrun’s jaunty tone did not match her worried face.

Dagny’s salty reply could not be heard as the troll loosed another loud blast into the summer air. Heard outside, it sounded much more musical.

“Follow, slowly,” Asbjørn said quietly, backing away from the building. “We’re just, going, to go.”

“I can get it, I’ve got my pike, General,” Sølvi flexed onto the balls of her feet, pointing the pike at the metal-clad troll.

Asbjørn squinted as he motioned his troops back, “No, leave it. We’re done here.” He could see that the troll that had stopped at the building’s threshold. “Before others come to see what the noise was about.” The squad retreated slowly, weapons at the ready as they scanned their surroundings.

Tor caught up to Dagny and Sigrun, with the box from the nest clutched to his chest.

The troll did not follow. A single long appendage extended out from the flared bell, snaking along the building’s crumbling skirting and into the weeds, reaching toward the drum which had hit Dagny.

\------

Back on the boat, the squad took stock as they waited for the cook to bring them their supper.

“I did not scream,” Oskar muttered, “that was the troll.” He rubbed his face with his hands. “It was weird – the place was clean. Really, really clean. Cleaner than my house, anyway.” He gave a rueful smile. “They had all these trophies and things, and they were all shiny, like they were new. It didn’t look like a troll nest! And there was a big one of those old instruments, and a bunch of drum things, just sitting out in the middle of the floor, shiny as you please. So, Tor was in the back, flipping around with those boxes, and he starts squealing, doesn’t he? We hear the signal and we started to go. Tor has _that thing_ with him,” Oskar gestured at the box, “and then I hear the signal. And then that, that _big horn thing_ in the corner gets up, and it’s a ##%#$$^ _troll,_ isn’t it?! It starts hitting all those drums around it, and that’s when I fell over that rack trying to get out, and then that _noise._ ” He winced and rubbed his temples. “Odin himself couldn’t make such a noise.”

Asbjørn murmured, “my father told me that old Uncle Gøran tried using an old hunting horn on patrol when they first started out. He thought it was a Viking thing to do, but it turned out to be just as bad as gunfire at attracting trolls. It’s true.” The soldiers nodded in sympathy. The general fixed narrowed eyes onto Tor. “So, Tor, tell me. Why was that thing worth almost losing three soldiers over?”

Tor ran his hand over the box. “We have an old picture, from _before._ My old grandmother’s uncle. He had one of these in that picture. I don’t know what it’s called. Something-funny-horn, I think. It was… it was…,” he hung his head. “Not worth losing anybody over, sir.”

He put the case on his knees and opened it. The clasps moved easily. The soldiers craned their necks to get a better view inside. A faint whiff of mould emanated from the red flocked lining. Nestled inside was a sinuous set of brass tubing, flaring out at one end. “Should I, should I,” Tor gestured toward the boat’s gunwales, “throw it away now? Sir?” His voice tightened on the question.

Asbjørn’s expression relaxed somewhat as he shook his head. “No, you may as well keep it. Yours to look after. Maybe put it on the wall when we get back to Dalsnes.” Tor bit his lip as he nodded and closed the case reverently. Asbjørn held up a finger. “But I promise you, if you blow that thing? I will have it cut it up into bullet casings before it stops echoing.”

As though on cue, the sound of the troll’s horn blast came over the water. The crew stopped chatting and listened intently, then looked at one another in awe as they realised they were hearing a tune.

As the tune started again, Sølvi nodded her head and softly whistled, trying to commit the tune to memory.

Silent tears ran down Tor’s cheeks as he listened and fidgeted with the trim on the instrument case still balanced on his knees.

Dagny’s breathing deepened as she fell asleep peacefully on her bunk.

Sigrun relaxed as she watched her friend slip into healing sleep, suddenly certain she would be all right to fight another day.

The medic put her face in her hands, remembering the humming of the old nurse who’d mentored her as a healer.

Oskar’s lip twitched as he stared at the case on Tor’s knees, wondering if the troll was somehow mocking him.

Asbjørn’s face was still as he stared blankly at the timbers forming the wall of the ship’s cabin, but he was transfixed at the suddenly vivid memory of a fellow soldier they were forced to leave behind on a sortie long ago, laying dead in a meadow of wildflowers.

Slow, sweet, and definitely _human_ in origin, the tune echoing in the summer twilight was so different from the screeches and cries of all of the other trolls they’d all heard over the years.

**Author's Note:**

> It's called a 'flugelhorn', Tor. It would be a shame to render an instrument with such a pretty sound into shell casings.


End file.
